Showing posts with label Mega Man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mega Man. Show all posts

Monday, January 17, 2011

#4 - Super Mario Bros. Crossover


Here we have a modded version of the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. These guys at "Exploding Rabbit" (for the record that's kind of a fucking stupid name) have taken a bunch of old school characters from NES era gaming, and compiled them into this game. This could have easily been cheesy, or stupid, but instead these guys have managed to put together a pretty sweet game. Now, if you've played all the way through the original Mario Bros. there's not really a whole lot to be had here with the exception of playing these classic levels with all of these different characters. Maybe it had been a while since I've played the original, or maybe this game just has some quality level design that makes these levels fun no matter how old they get. Either way I had one hell of a good time playing this game! My favorite part of the game is that these aren't just skins, slapped over the game. Each of these characters plays as they would in their original game. Not only that, but they upgrade as they would in their game. So Mega Man or Link, they don't just grow in size as they grab a mushroom, or just launch fireballs when they grab a flower, although Mega Man does now that I think about it. So when you're playing as Simon his whip upgrades to the morningstar, and when you're playing as link, his sword launches the laser sword deals that his sword used to back in the day, despite how little sense it made now or then. The biggest problem with this is that if you don't like how a character played in their game, you're not going to like them in this. Simon for example is no less of a pain in the ass to handle here than he was in Castlevania. They include mario in the game too, but where's the fun in that? I pretty much almost never used him unless I was at a part that I needed his specific jumps for.

Now Maybe the grass is always greener but I kind of wished they had included some levels from a few other games. I mean how much fun would it be to fight Mega Man Bosses as Mario, or to fight Death in Castlevania as Link. Now maybe this would have fucked with the formula that I already mentioned about the Mario levels being timeless, but who knows? That's my point. This game could have been boosted from fun flash game, to epic crossover. But on the other hand it could have been taken from a successful project to an extremely over-zealous failure. Who knows... Despite that, Exploding Rabbit has managed to make a pretty kick ass game here, despite that stupid name (let's face it, I've heard much worse.) If you want to check this game out for yourself, you can play it here. and I highly recommend doing so!


That's right, Mega Man's going to get it on with Mario's lady!

#9 - Mega Man



Mega Man has always been one of my favorite game franchises. I am aware that this is almost entirely based on Nostalgia, but still. I've always liked the idea of the character and these games, but wondered why he didn't keep growing with modern gaming. That being said whenever I think of Mega Man, I always forget how hard, and kind of not awesome this first one is. I still enjoy the game and gameplay, it's just a little bit of a pain in the ass. I guess in my brain I always imagine the series starting at two... It's not that this game is bad, it's just not as good as I remember. It's hard to say what I'm not crazy about in this game. I guess maybe it's that I know there's much better to come, and that feels like me slighting this game a bit, but as I'm playing I feel more like I'm going through the motions than anything else. I mean, I like all the bosses, and their respective levels are fun enough, but the gameplay just isn't varied enough.

If you've never played it, it's kind of a classic and I feel like it's almost owed to be played, especially if you want to play them all or like the games to come. This is the birthplace of a lot of those great gaming moments! I guess I'm just having trouble getting excited about it is all...